The world is now fully engaged in a war on terrorism. It seems to be marching into battle without a clear definition of what a “terrorist” is. As we struggle to end the violence in the Middle East today, we must also begin to look at what “terrorism” and “terrorist” mean in the context of the Arab world.
First, we condemn as terrorism the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. The Arab countries and religious leaders join the entire world in determined opposition to such acts.
Second, we do not condemn — nor do we label — as terrorists the Palestinian freedom fighters who are resisting Israel’s illegal occupation of their land. The entire Arab world stands in complete and total support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom from occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.
At the same time, suicide bombings have been condemned by all parties. This is not the means by which any battle will be won.
What can we then say about the bombings which for the most part kill innocent Israeli civilians? If the suicide bombings are wrong, does that mean that their struggle is also wrong? What is the difference between these suicide bombings and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11? We are all confused by someone’s mind and the strength of his or her belief that leads them to sacrifice their lives willingly. We ask “why,” and seek to understand how they could end their lives and the lives of others? And in these questions we can discern the difference between Sept. 11 and the suicide bombings.
The terrorism of Sept. 11 was a collective act by people willing to leave behind a life of comfort and love in order to defend a flawed concept of religious right. They were not young people living without hope; they were not suffering pain or humiliation and they were not born without a homeland. When they died for their cause, many of them did not know that was to be their fate. They had to be tricked into giving their lives.
The suicide bombers in Palestine, on the other hand, clearly know that they will die. They make a choice out of desperation and frustration; they have lost all hope and have experienced depths of helpless humiliation and poverty that have driven them to rage and bitter violence. For them it is a simple act of sacrifice; they are making the strongest possible statement in support of the Palestinian land and the Palestinian people. They are willing to make this sacrifice because Israel has suffocated all hope of justice and decency for the Palestinians. It is the Israelis who are responsible for the circumstances which have resulted in these individuals taking the most desperate and irrevocable step.
Those who are party to this war must give reasons for hope, nurse the anticipation of justice, kindle dreams of self-determination, and of a Palestinian state. For more than 50 years, families have waited in cramped desolate desperation, suffering the loss of hope for their children and even the children themselves. They live on dreams of the day when their children will be able to stand up and say, “Just give me a chance; let me prove what I am worth by living and not by dying.”
(The writer is a Saudi businessman based in Riyadh.)
